When Your Swimmer Wants to Quit Swimming: What Actually Helps

I am David Karasek, Olympic finalist and Swiss record holder in the 200m IM, and I have been on both sides of this conversation. I have coached hundreds of competitive teenage swimmers through the moments where they start to question whether it is still worth it. And I walked out of a pool myself one Friday after 600 metres, told my coach I was done, and never went back.

Here is what I know with certainty: every serious swimmer hits this at some point. What matters is not that it happens. It is how the people around them respond when it does.

Why swimmers say they want to quit (and what is really going on)

When I ask swimmers what is going on, the answer is almost never that they hate the water. What I hear underneath every “I am not sure I want to do this anymore” is: things are not going the way I secretly hoped, and I do not know how to say that.

Maybe they are not seeing progress. Maybe they are comparing themselves to a teammate and it is not adding up. Maybe there is something else in their life — an instrument, another sport, a relationship — that is pulling at them because swimming stopped feeling like momentum and started feeling like standing still.

That shift rarely happens when a swimmer is on a roll. It happens when results stall or go backwards. And the worst thing we can do as the adults around them is miss the signal, or paper over it with “just keep going.”

The swimmer needs someone safe to express this to. Not to be fixed immediately. Not to be talked out of it. Just to say it out loud so the people who want to help them actually know what they are dealing with.

Reframe failure before the big end-of-summer meet

The pressure most swimmers feel around a big competition comes from one place: fear of disappointing someone. Themselves, their parents, their coach, sometimes a grandparent or a person they care about. They are afraid that if they do not perform, they are going to have a bad time — that the gap between what they can do and what they show is going to be visible.

Here is the reframe that works. Whatever happens in that competition, one of two things is true. Either they swim well and get what they wanted, and life is great. Or they do not swim how they hoped, and they learn — and if we handle it right, the learning is actually worth more than another medal would have been.

Win or learn. Both are good. Learning is actually better. Listen to any successful athlete in the world and they will tell you they failed often and they failed early — and after a while they stopped being afraid of it. Because failure is not the outcome. It is what we do with the outcome.

Then there is the definition of failure itself. When I ask swimmers to come up with a new one, they always want to tie it to the result — the time, the place, the goal. But the result is not fully in their control. The definition of failure has to be something they can control. So here is the one I give them, and almost every swimmer I have ever shared it with has decided to adopt it:

“You only fail when you do not try or when you give up. That is it. Everything else is information.”

That definition is 100% in their control. They can wake up on race day knowing the only way to fail is to not try or to quit. And if they have somebody in their corner to help them process whatever happens — good or bad — they are going to come out of this season better than they went in.

Good pain versus bad pain

One of the most important things we teach at Swimpros — Europe’s most popular performance swim camp right now — is the difference between good pain and bad pain. We got the concept from Milorad Čavić, world record holder, who coaches at our camp across August.

Bad pain is a sharp shoulder, a tendon that hurts, back pain, a headache that does not go away, trouble breathing normally. These are signals, and swimmers must speak up immediately. We pull people from the water with bad pain at camp — no questions asked — and we do not send them back in until it is resolved.

Good pain is what competitive swimmers signed up for. Lactic acid burning in the legs. A heart rate that feels like it is going to explode. Holding your breath past the point where your body is screaming to breathe. This is the pain of adaptation — the body saying “I have never done this before, I better adjust.” And if you can be greater than your body with your mind in those moments, if you can find a way to stay when every signal says stop, that is when the glass ceiling of what you thought you were capable of starts to crack.

Most swimmers who hit a plateau are not working hard enough at the edge of their good pain. And most swimmers who say they want to quit have also started to dread that edge, because nobody has helped them build a relationship with it. That relationship is learnable — and it is one of the most important things a camp, a coach, or a parent can help build.

What to actually say and do when your swimmer is struggling

• Make it safe to say it. Create a moment where they can speak without judgment. “What is actually going on? Why is it less exciting right now?” is a better question than “what is wrong with you?”
• Do not just say next season will be better. It will not get better on its own. The swimmer needs a process to turn this moment into learning, not just time to pass.
• Loop in their coach. The coach needs to know. A swimmer can only be helped if the adults on their team are aligned.
• Help them find their definition of failure. The one thing fully in their control. Not the time. Not the place. Just: did they try and did they not give up.
• Teach good pain from bad pain. If they have not learned this distinction, they may be dreading what is actually just growth.

Frequently asked questions